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Audit of Political Engagement

The 2019 Audit of Political Engagement is out now! Find out what the public thinks about politics, politicians, political parties, the system of governing and more, in our latest Audit of Political Engagement.

About the Audit of Political Engagement

About the Audit of Political Engagement

The Audit of Political Engagement is a time-series study providing an annual benchmark to measure political engagement in Great Britain. It gauges public opinion about politics and the political system and, more broadly, the general health of our democracy. The study provides a snapshot of public perceptions of, and engagement with, politics at a given moment in time.

The first Audit was published in 2004. The 2019 report is therefore the 16th report in a series which now draws on 15 years of data.

Each Audit report presents the findings from a face-to-face public opinion survey carried out on a representative quota sample of adults across Great Britain. The survey for the 2019 report was conducted in December 2018 by Ipsos MORI.

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Core engagement indicators

Core engagement indicators

Six ‘core indicator’ questions are asked in each annual Audit survey. These are supplemented by a range of thematic and topical questions, some of which are also asked each year and some of which are re-visited on two- or three-year cycles.

The six ‘core indicators’ measure: certainty to vote; interest in politics; knowledge of politics and (consistently since APE 8) Parliament; satisfaction with the system of governing; and people’s sense of political efficacy – the extent to which becoming politically involved can change things.

Get over 15 years of Audit of Political Engagement data

Download every Audit of Political Engagement since 2004, including their SPSS datasets and tables, covering 15 years of insight into public attitudes towards politics in Great Britain.